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A Woman in Engineering Can Drive Better Solutions, Increased Opportunities, and a More Impassioned Workforce
I've told this story many times before, but one of the main reasons I built Integrant almost 30 years ago is that when I was a DB2 DBA, I saw the challenges companies had with their software vendors: often tense, short-lived and one-sided.
Customers inherited all the risk, and it was frequently costly in more ways than one. I wanted to change that. I wanted to improve the customer experience significantly.
The second part of the story is that building a company also means creating the right culture, opportunities, and environment for your employees to succeed and thrive.
As passionate as I was about creating the best customer experience, I wanted to make the best workplace for our teams. People who were seeking an employment opportunity with Integrant were trusting me with their career development and, therefore, their future. That began a 30-year-long journey to where we are today.
In this article, we aim to embrace engineering for women and explain why it is a vital aspect of the workplace. A woman in engineering should be treated as equally as a man would.
Did you know?
In the US, it’s estimated that women comprise only 20 to 25% of the software engineering workforce.
Empowering the Future: Engineering for Women, Committed to Impact
Our principles and culture are intended to break down barriers, create awareness of internal biases, and limit those biases from impacting decision-making as much as possible.
We want a woman in engineering to not only succeed in her career, but we want to help her gain independence and instill confidence. We want women to know that we value them for their unique contributions, and the sky’s the limit. At Integrant, we want to present opportunities and help people find their true passion.
Celebrating women in engineering allows them to become role models for any other woman in engineering, especially for the younger generation. We hope that any woman in engineering for the current and future generations feels welcomed as they join this field.
At Integrant, we’ve contributed to making that space as much as possible. After all, a rising tide lifts all boats.
In addition to providing these opportunities, we want to create this awareness of engineering opportunities for young women early—as early as middle and high school.
Why wait until college to discover and implement your passion for engineering? We’re working on a great program to create more significant change for representation and access to engineering that we hope to launch within the next year. Stay tuned for more updates!
Did you know?
Women account for 40% of Integrant’s engineers.
Building Excellence: Females in Engineering Helping Us Create and Shape Our Culture
We know that change isn’t always easy. Creating a culture we’re proud of takes constant diligence, continuous monitoring and reflection, and consistent action.
Beyond our company values, we have four core principles that have helped us establish programs and practices that facilitate creating awareness related to inherent biases and make it easier to have conversations to dispel myths related to women in the workforce.
Here are some crucial practices we put in place to help ensure a workplace free of discrimination and provide equal opportunity for all:
Flexible Work Hours
Everyone juggles several responsibilities in their personal lives. We don’t want that to prevent anyone from being successful. We allow flexible work hours and schedules so people can make it home in time to pick up their children or get home before it becomes unsafe, particularly on public transportation. Usually, this affects females in engineering more than men. Our goals are to minimize stress and remove one more roadblock to success.
Objective Evaluations and Continuous Feedback
This is something we’ve worked really hard on and have discussed at length. We believe that every employee deserves to have continuous feedback (professional, positive, and constructive, of course) to perform their best and to maintain transparency.
Top Performer Program
Along with monthly one-on-one sessions with each employee, we have a quarterly recognition program to reward top performers based on several objective categories. This helps enforce merit-based recognition and can facilitate an opportunity to uncover biases in the workplace.
Public Salary Ranges
That’s right. We post our salary ranges for each position to provide transparency to our employees. We offer highly competitive salaries because we know how valuable our engineers are regardless of gender. We want any woman in engineering to know that we see them and understand that the same contributions that they’re providing are being rewarded the same way as any colleague.
Additionally, we periodically complete salary adjustments for the whole company to ensure that all employees are compensated fairly for their efforts. Often, when performing this exercise, we don’t look at names to further ensure people are being recognized purely based on their contributions and not anything else.
Lead by Example
Our leadership team has had some tough but necessary conversations over the years. Ask tough questions to uncover someone’s inherent biases, gently build that awareness, and dispel workplace myths about women.
We’ve had to remain consistent to demonstrate that this is a high priority for us and keep a consistent culture, primarily as our company has grown to over 200 engineers. We’ll continue to do so because empowering a woman in engineering is essential to who we are and part of Integrant’s why.
Did you know?
Over 50% of Integrant’s engineering leadership is women.
Why a Woman in Engineering Is Key to Why Representation Matters in the Workplace
In the US, women comprise 51.1% of the population, yet are estimated to only account for 20-25% of the software engineering workforce.
This is a missed opportunity that would push innovation and result in better solutions and processes. This, in turn, helps our customers achieve their goals faster and more efficiently. For example, let’s say we can help a drug discovery company cut their time to market down from anywhere to 50-90%.
While my passion for building Integrant started with a need I saw for customers and enabling them to build great software with minimal risk and high-value service, it’s developed to include my passion for coaching, empowering engineering for women, and developing others.
At Integrant, I’m proud to say that our engineering leadership team is more than 50% women and that our engineering workforce is 40% women.
Conclusion
We’re excited to continue pushing the envelope and making space for all talented engineers. Still, we’re especially rooting for any woman in engineering and for all of the women who have been told they can’t or shouldn’t become an engineer for any reason, the young women who are intimidated because software engineering is such a male-dominated field. Any ladies who are doubting themselves—we want to support you.
Happy Women in Engineering Day! Celebrate all the amazingly talented and hardworking female engineers in your life who paved the way for where we are today.
Feel free to contact us if you’re seeking expert advice for your business.
